Juggling Multiple Prescriptions

Managing multiple prescriptions is not for the faint of heart. The person must remember when to take the medication, the correct dose, and the proper method. Life and work obligations can lead to missed doses. Additionally, unpleasant side effects can mean juggling medications to avoid disrupting everyday activities. Add in the high cost of prescriptions, and medication management can be as painful as the disease the drug is intended to treat. Local pharmacists can use medication therapy management (MTM) to tackle these issues and more.

What is medication therapy management?

Medication therapy management is a range of services, often provided by pharmacists, designed to help people taking multiple prescriptions. The goal is to help patients feel more comfortable and optimize all therapies, with the overall goal of improving health. MTM does not focus on a specific disease or prescription. Instead, the goal is to zoom out and find ways to create a plan to help the patient use medicines safely. MTM can also help with cost savings, which empowers patients to use prescription drugs consistently. The result is a healthier, happier patient. Local pharmacists are some of the most prominent advocates of MTM.

Ready for your review?

A medication review makes up the bulk of MTM. Medication reviews are consultations between pharmacists and patients to assess all drugs taken. First, the pharmacist can look at all prescriptions and create the best strategy for safe medicine adherence. The patient will come to the pharmacy with all medications, over-the-counter drugs, and supplements currently used. Next, the pharmacist will review the pills, look for duplicates, assess unpleasant side effects, and identify discontinued medicines. The patient can bring up any challenges with taking medication and ask general questions. From there, the pharmacist will remove, modify, and make a medication-related action plan.

Cost-saving initiatives

Patients often save money through MTM initiatives. For instance, the medication review can find duplicate drugs and identify cheaper alternatives. Simple changes like this can save people hundreds of dollars each month. Furthermore, as part of MTM, local pharmacists can provide additional free services, consultations, and incentives, saving patients hundreds of dollars in office visits and prescriptions.

Change things up with compounding

MTM aims to optimize medication use, reduce side effects, and decrease costs. Pharmacists and patients may achieve all of these through compounding. If there is an opportunity, the pharmacist can combine multiple prescriptions into one easy-to-use formula. While compounding may seem more expensive, the combined formula is often cheaper than the individual drugs. The patient may be more inclined to take a single prescription over multiple medicines, resulting in better health outcomes.

Improving adherence

Local pharmacists now play an active role in healthcare. With MTM, the pharmacist directly affects health outcomes well after the patient has left the doctor’s visit. Patients managing multiple chronic diseases, people experiencing side effects from medication, and individuals interested in saving money should consider MTM. Through reviews, counseling, and compounding, adherence can be improved.